1919 St Francis Xavier’s School, Railway Estate

1919 – 1976

In 1912 Bishop Joseph Shiel replaced Bishop Duhig as Bishop of Rockhampton, and he was keen to build upon the success of the Sisters of St Joseph in Cloncurry. He decided to transfer three sisters who were currently teaching thirty-four children at Mt Chalmers, several kilometres southeast of Rockhampton, to a new convent he wanted to establish at Richmond. The people of Mt Chalmers opposed the decision with all of their might, and threatened to send their children to the local state school if the sisters were moved. Bishop Shiel relented, but only for a time. The school at Mt Chalmers eventually closed and, in May 1915, the Sisters of St Joseph arrived in Richmond to teach sixty students, with classes regularly held outside or in the space underneath the convent.

St Francis Xavier’s School was established when the infants’ school building was moved from St Joseph’s School in North Ward to Railway Estate. The schoolroom was originally located at the rear of the first presbytery of St Joseph’s Church on The Strand. In 1918 it was shifted to Railway Estate in order to make way for the construction of the new St Joseph’s Church. The building was raised onto high blocks and opened as St Francis Xavier Church School on 26 January 1919. This building is now used as a Catholic church hall, and may be the earliest surviving school building in North Queensland and one of only two in which Mother Mary of the Cross taught.